How many “reforms” must a University suffer
Before it is razed to the ground ?
And how many generations must be destroyed
Before we learn our lessons?
Today’s Delhi Editions of The Times of India and Dainik Jagran carried reports of a Committee meeting in the South Campus to discuss Choice Based Credit System. Learning about the meeting from the reports, the DUTA has tried to approach both the members of the UGC Committee, Prof. Kuhad and Dr. Jaswinder Singh, and a representation was emailed to them this morning.
The FYUP adversely affected the careers of thousands of students of Delhi University. It is unfortunate to see that the implementation of CBCS is even more rushed than FYUP and the University is even less prepared to implement it. Even as admissions will commence on 25 June 2015, there is no clarity on course structure, syllabi and examination scheme.
At Delhi University, implementation of CBCS was brought as “Any other matter” in the Academic Council held on 21 January and merely as a reporting item in the Executive Council of 28 May 2015. No discussion was allowed in both the Houses, as the VC and his team maintained that this has to be implemented as per the UGC and the MHRD directions. It was deemed as adopted against dissents submitted by 15 out of 26 elected teacher-representatives in the Academic Council and 5 out of 18 in the Executive Council. The AC and the EC did not adopt any structure for CBCS. Once again usurping the powers of the Statutory Bodies, the VC held meetings of the Heads where they were told to work on the UGC draft syllabi. Heads were told that in case the syllabi did not exist, they can draft one and email it to the UGC as well. Heads were instructed to prepare syllabi in 10 days’ time!
Even as General Bodies of teachers of various Departments including History, Political Science, Urdu and Physics rejected CBCS, syllabi were drafted or amended by a select few and passed in the Faculty meetings in minutes’ time. The University has been once again coerced to work against its basic principles. Recently the UGC through the media announced that universities could modify syllabi up to 30% instead of 20%. This has, however, not been notified to the universities.
With less than one month left for the new academic session to start, colleges at DU are completely at a loss; preparation of libraries, labs, workload calculation, faculty hiring and time table preparation have come to a standstill and these tasks will be rushed at the last minute straining the units further.
A study of the draft syllabi on the UGC website show that these are “cut and paste” of the FYUP syllabi. The UGC cannot show pan-India consultation in drafting the CBCS structure or syllabi. The UGC site has uploaded the CBCS structure and syllabi without giving details of committees responsible for the same.The CBCS syllabi come without any authorship.
These half-baked syllabi will damage the fundamental concepts of lakhs of students.The hurried implementation of the CBCS, which is directed at all colleges and universities in the country, lacks quality and would adversely affect the careers of lakhs of students.
The DUTA has taken up the matter with the Minister for HRD as well as the UGC. A joint delegation of the FEDCUTA and AIFUCTO met the Secretary UGC on 19th June and, while asserting our firm opposition to UGC-made syllabi being imposed on Universities in violation of their autonomy, pointed out to him that even if a 20% (now changed to 30%) deviation is to be implemented, it needs time to work out what the deviations could be. The silence maintained by the MHRD and the Visitor is unfortunate. We appeal to them to defer the implementation of CBCS and to open the issue for wider consultation.
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